Peter Kaiser took a couple of steps closer. ‘I haven’t called the police because the police are too busy with all the rioting and the looting you started off with that broadcast of yours. Apart from that, you’ve ransacked some pretty sensitive papers there. I wouldn’t like them to get into the hands of somebody who might misinterpret them.’

‘So what’s your offer?’ asked Ed. ‘You want to make a deal?’

‘The offer’s simple. I’ll let you out of here alive, as long as you let Senator Jones go free, and as long as you never mention anything about the Blight Crisis Appeal again.’

‘One more thing,’ said Ed.

‘What’s that?’

‘You take the tail off of my wife and my daughter. Because I warn you, if anything happens to them. I’ll hunt you down and take your head off.’

‘That’s all right,’ Peter nodded. ‘I can agree to that. Now, do you want to come out, with your hands where we can see them?’

Ed turned to Della again. “What do you think?’ he asked her.

Della said, ‘I don’t trust him. My reason says he’s probably on the level, but my instinct says beware.’

Ed squeezed her hand. ‘Well, I’ve always been the kind of person to follow my instinct. Let’s give them a test. Remember the old cowboy films?’

He handed her the gun to hold, and then, twisting on the needly floor of the woods, he tugged his red sweatshirt off.

‘Striptease, at a time like this?’ she asked him.

‘Just give me the gun,’ he told her.

Quickly, he wrapped the sweatshirt around the barrel of the rifle. Then, hesitantly and jerkily, he raised it up above the protective fender of the Lincoln, as if it was someone coming out of cover.

‘There!’ said Peter.

The silence of the woods was cracked by three pistol shots in rapid succession. Ed’s sweatshirt was flapped up into the air by one bullet, and they felt the wind of a second as it passed narrowly overhead. The third pinged off the Lincoln’s trunk.

Ed snatched down the rifle, rolled around to the slope which he had chosen as his firing position, snuggled the butt against his cheek and looked for Peter and Muldoon.

Muldoon, crouched as low as an arm-swinging baboon, was only a few feet away, running in fast to finish off the red sweatshirt. Peter was already round the other side of the limousine – presumably intent on rescuing Shearson. Della was right behind Ed, her head buried beside his thigh.

Muldoon didn’t have a chance. He was so close that Ed shouted, ‘Muldoon! Drop it!’ just to give the man a break. But Muldoon made a dive for the ground, and fired off another thunderous shot from his .45, and Ed squeezed the trigger without allowing himself to think anything else but kill him.